


A terrible lack of propriety

by Nary



Category: Diablotin
Genre: Caretaking, Courtship, Dirty Talk, F/M, First Kiss, Flirting, Possession, Romance, Unexpected Emotions, implied prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-13
Updated: 2012-03-13
Packaged: 2017-11-01 21:25:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/361432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loick sighed.  "Your granddaughter," he told her, "was under the control of an unknown extraplanar entity.  For her own safety and that of others, she was brought to me, in my capacity as Chief Sorcerer, that I might examine her."</p><p>"Yes, I'm sure you did <i>examine</i> her - for a month she was chained up, naked, in your bedroom!"</p><p>"No," Loick replied calmly.  "My second-best bedroom.   And I provided her with blankets and a dressing gown."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A terrible lack of propriety

Loick Silveira, Duke of Brissarthe, was unusually nervous as he stood outside the Countess of Ameron's house in the Grand. It was a good-sized place, but clearly had seen better days; the paint on the trim was peeling, and the gate screeched as if it hadn't been oiled in a decade. The windows were all closed, which was not unexpected given the chilly spring weather, but they also looked to be covered with heavy drapes which would block out what meagre sunshine there was. All in all, it looked like the house was quite unloved.

The duke straightened his hat and took a deep breath before knocking on the door. He waited patiently, and at last it creaked open. A dour-looking butler gave him a suspicious look. "Yes?"

"The Duke of Brissarthe," Loick said by way of introduction. "I was hoping to speak to Mlle. Levernois, if she's in."

The butler's face grew still more grim. "Her ladyship does not normally receive visitors at this hour." He seemed to struggle with his sense of propriety, versus the shame of turning away a duke from his door. "I will let her know you are here, however." Grudgingly he allowed Loick inside, and departed to convey his message.

Loick passed the time looking about the hall. Much like the outside of the house, it was in poor repair. Although it was not dirty, there were signs that suggested it was not often visited either. A large mirror on the wall was spotted and warped with age, and there were few lights to illuminate the room's dark corners. 

At length the butler returned. "Her ladyship will receive you in the drawing room," he informed the duke, and immediately turned to bring him there, without offering to take his coat or hat. Carrying them somewhat awkwardly, Loick followed him.

The woman who was seated in the drawing room was not the young lady he expected to see. She was a pinch-faced, wiry old woman dressed in black, with a lace cap covering her fine white hair. "Your grace," she said, "forgive me if I do not rise."

"Of course," he said politely, suspecting he was speaking to the Countess Elesta herself. 

"To what do I owe this pleasure?" Despite her choice of words, she looked distinctly unpleased.

"Madam, thank you for receiving me. I had hoped that I might speak with your granddaughter."

The countess's wrinkled lips puckered still further. "My granddaughter," she said in a tightly controlled voice, "is not well. She is in no condition to receive visitors at present."

Loick nodded. "I was aware, of course, that she has had certain difficulties of late, but I believed those to have been largely, ah, remedied." 

"Yes, you would be aware of them, wouldn't you." The countess sniffed. "Your name appeared quite prominently in the Scourge's stories about her."

"I'm surprised you read that rag," he said with a hint of a smile. "You should know that fully half of what it prints are lies, and the other half are exaggerations. And I don't believe her name was ever mentioned, in fact - I went to some effort to ensure her identity wasn't revealed."

"Do you deny that you held my granddaughter captive in your home for nearly a month?"

Loick sighed. "Your granddaughter," he told her, "was under the control of an unknown extraplanar entity. For her own safety and that of others, she was brought to me, in my capacity as Chief Sorcerer, that I might examine her."

"Yes, I'm sure you did _examine_ her - for a month she was chained up, naked, in your bedroom!"

"No," Loick replied calmly. "My second-best bedroom. And I provided her with blankets and a dressing gown." 

The countess looked as though she might seethe herself into an apoplexy, so Loick continued more sternly. "Madam, as Chief Sorcerer, it is my responsibility to deal with serious, unexplained events of a magical nature. I would prefer not to order you to produce your granddaughter so that I might ascertain that she remains in good health and has had no... relapse, but I shall if necessary. Thank you for your assistance."

Still full of barely-suppressed anger, the countess rang the bell to summon a servant. "Bring Madelen here at once," she told him. A tense silence filled the room as they waited. The countess tapped her fingers impatiently on the lacquered table, and Loick made no attempt at further conversation, since it seemed unwelcome. He wondered if the old woman knew about her granddaughter's previous profession, or whether her obvious unhappiness was due entirely to her belief that he had mistreated the girl.

At last, the door reopened and a young woman, quite short and slender, with dark brown hair cut in a fringe across her forehead entered the room. She bobbed a polite curtsey to her grandmother and her guest. "You wished to see me, madam?"

"No, but this _gentleman_ did." The old woman almost spat the word, as if it offended her greatly to apply it to the man before her.

"Good day, Mlle. Levernois," Loick said, standing to greet her. "I hope you continue well?"

She nodded shyly. "I am improving, my lord. I appreciate your concern." It was difficult to square this polite, well-spoken young lady with the creature that had for a time possessed her body, a being whose alien nature was still largely a mystery to Loick. He remembered vividly how she - or the entity within her, he couldn't be sure which of them was in control at any given moment - had screamed and clawed at her clothes, her skin, her eyes, until he was forced to restrain her for her own safety. Unwilling to subject her to the curious stares of his servants, he had cared for her himself, bringing her food and water, doing what he could to keep her clean. Despite his best efforts she had grown unhealthily thin, but she looked to be regaining her strength now. 

"You have not experienced any... reoccurrences of your previous trouble, then?" he asked delicately.

"No, sir. I don't believe so, at any rate. I feel quite myself again." She smiled, and it made her otherwise pretty face seem dazzling. "I know I owe you and the others a great thanks, which I can only hope to repay some day."

"Think nothing of it," he reassured her. "I'm only glad I was able to help."

"There you are," the countess snapped. "You've seen what you came here for - I trust you'll be on your way now."

Loick looked back at Madelen, whose smile had faded under her grandmother's stern words, and realized he was not finished with her, not even remotely. "As a matter of fact," he said on a whim, "I wondered if Mlle. Levernois might care to join me for a stroll in the Firefly Gardens."

Madelen brightened, but her grandmother frowned. "Surely not! She'll be liable to catch a chill in this ghastly weather."

"Madam, although the breeze outside is brisk, the weather is quite fair today," Loick informed her. "Perhaps the fresh air would be beneficial for her continued improvement."

"Oh yes," Madelen chimed in. "I think I would feel ever so much better if I went outside for an hour or so, grandmother."

Countess Elesta sniffed disapprovingly. "Well, a chaperone would be appropriate, at the very least."

"You are of course welcome to accompany us," Loick said with his most charming smile, counting on her refusal. 

"We shall be in the gardens, there will be any number of people around," Madelen reassured her. "I fail to see how anyone could see anything inappropriate in us merely walking together."

"People will see what they expect to see," the countess said darkly, but she was unable to find any other reasonable excuse why her granddaughter might not go for a stroll at midmorning in a public park with such an important gentleman as the Duke of Brissarthe. Madelen dashed off to seek her coat and bonnet, and Loick bade as polite a farewell as he could to her grandmother.

"You must understand," the old woman said, her voice suddenly tremulous, "she is all I have."

Loick attempted to feel pity for her, but had to bite back a sharp response for the way she was treating her supposedly-beloved granddaughter. "I shall return her safely in an hour's time," he told her curtly, and went to wait by the door for Madelen. 

She descended the stairs a short while later, wearing a respectable dark green wool coat and a bonnet tied on with matching ribbon. It was a little staid for a young lady, Loick thought, but she looked cheerful as she took his arm.

"I'm terribly sorry about all of that," she said once they were a short distance from the house. "Grandmother can be ...difficult sometimes."

"Don't worry about it. Of course she is concerned for your well-being," he reassured her. "I'm only glad to see you're doing so well." 

"It's very kind of you to come and see me." The crisp breeze brought a rosy tint to her cheeks, or perhaps she was blushing - either way, it made her prettier still. "I know you had to, for security, but it's still nice to talk to someone other than Grandmother for a little while."

Loick shook his head. "I had to come and see you - I didn't have to take you for a walk. That I wanted to do, because I thought it might make you smile. A hope which has been fully gratified, I would add."

Madelen blushed further, and honoured him with another of her dazzling smiles. "You didn't have to do this... any of this." She hesitated, looking down, embarrassed. "I don't remember everything about the time I spent at your house, but I remember enough to know you took care of me, even when I was being... horrible." 

"Listen, Mlle. Levernois - it wasn't your doing," he told her firmly, turning to face her and taking both of her hands in his. "You weren't under your own control, you weren't yourself. And I didn't mind caring for you." 

She looked up at him through lowered lashes. "Oh, I know enough about you to know you almost certainly had more amusing things you could have been doing instead of struggling to bathe and groom a chained madwoman who alternated between trying to fuck you and trying to kill you, my lord."

Loick gave a short laugh. "Some people would consider that a marvellous evening, and pay highly for the privilege." He wished he hadn't said it a moment after the words left his lips, but fortunately Madelen didn't seem offended.

"Yes," she agreed, "especially if the part about trying to kill you was only a game. I'm afraid in this case it wouldn't have been. Also, you didn't get to enjoy any of the pleasurable side of the business." She looked up at him more boldly, searching his face. "At least, I don't think you did."

"No," Loick hastened to set her mind at rest. "I confess the thought crossed my mind from time to time when you were, ah, begging for it, but I couldn't have followed through, not knowing if you were truly willing or if it was that _thing_ talking through your mouth, not knowing if it could pass into me that way, or harm me somehow... It would have been ridiculously irresponsible of me, not to mention inconsiderate to you, under the circumstances."

A look of relief came over her. "Thank you, my lord. I didn't think you would have, but I needed to hear it from you." She took his arm again, and they continued their walk. The trees were in bud, and the early spring flowers just beginning to poke up through the soil. A few other visitors to the gardens passed them - nannies with their charges, mainly, at this time of day. Madelen smiled at the children who dashed by them, running ahead of their minders, and her smile made Loick smile too, when he might otherwise have been irritated by their playful shrieks and the few drops of muddy water they splashed on the leg of his trousers. 

Once they were safely out of earshot once more, Madelen said, "Thank you as well for not telling my grandmother where... where they found me. She doesn't know about any of that, and I don't think she could handle it."

"Of course," Loick told her graciously. "I know how important confidentiality is in your line of work."

She gave a little laugh. "It's not my line of work any longer. There's a new Diamond already, I'm sure. It'll just have to be a hobby now."

Loick arched an eyebrow. "May I inquire why you did it in the first place? I mean, if it was a question of enjoyment, I wouldn't have thought a girl like you would have any difficulty attracting partners..."

Madelen looked up, seemingly absorbed in watching a flock of geese high overhead. "I enjoyed it, at least sometimes, but I needed the money too. You saw the house, you can't imagine that we're wealthy."

"I took it for miserliness, rather than lack of funds," he said. "Your grandmother's a countess, surely there's land somewhere, tax revenues..."

She shrugged. "Not very much. How much do you know about my family?" 

"Next to nothing," Loick said, which was not strictly true. "House Lizard, that much I know, but beyond that..."

Madelen bit her lip. "It's not something we often talk about. I probably shouldn't tell you, but I feel I can trust you, after everything we've been through... She's not truly my grandmother, she's my great-aunt. Her brother was Raimar Langevin, and he and his wife Noira were my grandparents."

It confirmed what Loick's research into the case had suggested. Raimar had been a pretender to the throne whose family had led a spectacular, and ultimately doomed, rebellion some fifty years before. "Then the family's lands..."

"All confiscated, along with the major titles," she nodded. "Grandmother was the only one left, apart from my father that is, and since she hadn't been involved in the rebellion they let her keep Ameron, but nothing else. Ameron is awful, by the way - mostly rocks and scrub. She raised my father as if he was her own after his parents died. Her husband married her for the title, I don't think he ever cared for her…"

Loick nodded, listening absently, but his mind was elsewhere. Raimar Langevin had passed through the Arch as a candidate for the throne. Had his wife been pregnant before or after he'd been subjected to the test? Could that have affected his descendants somehow, could it possibly have left Madelen vulnerable to whatever force had possessed her...? He realized he hadn't heard the last few words she'd said. "I'm sorry, I was thinking," he said, ashamed, when he noticed she had paused, waiting for him to say something. "Are you their only descendant?"

"As far as I know," she said. "My father passed away four years ago, so it's only me now." 

"My condolences. You've lived with your grandmother since then?"

She nodded. "My mother was... well, she married someone else, and it was just easier to... be somewhere else myself."

"I can't imagine it's been very easy living with her, to be completely honest."

"Well, no... I suppose not. But she mainly keeps to her rooms, and never seemed to notice when I would go out in the evenings." Madelen made a little face. "Since I ... since everything that happened, though, she's set the servants to keeping an eye on me when she's not doing it herself. I can't go anywhere." 

"Would she allow you to come out if you were in the company of a respectable gentleman?" he asked, smiling.

"Probably, but, if we're still being completely honest, you're not a respectable gentleman, my lord," she replied playfully. "Wrong House, and reputed as a rake to boot."

"I suppose you're right," he agreed. "Would those things bother you?"

Her eyes twinkled merrily as she looked up at him. "Not even a little, my lord. In fact, if you wanted to chain me up again and this time take what you wanted, I believe I should greatly enjoy that."

"I think after you've made an offer like that to a man, you might as well call him by his first name. Enough _my lord_ s - from now on to you, I'm Loick."

"All right, Loick," she said. "And I'm Madelen, not Mlle. Levernois."

He nodded, feeling slightly dizzy and overly warm despite the cool air. "It would be enormously inappropriate for me to say something like 'I want to drag you behind those bushes and fuck you on the ground,' wouldn't it."

Madelen giggled. "Yes, it would! And my grandmother will notice if so much as my bonnet is askew, let alone if my dress is covered in mud and grass stains."

"Perhaps another time, then," he said, a bit wistfully. "Better still, next time I visit, I'll bring my carriage. The interior is fortunately free from any traces of mud, and it provides convenient shelter from prying eyes."

They had made a full circuit of the park by this point, and over an hour had passed - it was past time to be returning Madelen to her grandmother. Madelen was quiet, perhaps even a little melancholy as they walked back up the street to the old house, and Loick found himself feeling violently reluctant to leave her there. "I'll come back soon," he promised. 

"How soon?"

"Would tomorrow be convenient?"

"That would be shockingly soon," she said, smiling. 

"Yes," he agreed. "You will have to get used to my terrible lack of propriety, I'm afraid." He brought her hand to his lips. 

"Until tomorrow, then," she said, glancing at the window, where the curtain had just twitched back so that her grandmother's sour face might peep out. "I ought to go."

"Wait," he called her back, thinking quickly. "A little something, by way of a... a token of affection." He unfastened the pin from his cravat and offered it to Madelen. Her eyes widened.

"Oh, I can't possibly..."

"Of course you can." He folded her hand carefully around the diamond-tipped stickpin. "For my Diamond."

Madelen blushed, but neither that nor the stares of passers-by nor her grandmother's prying eyes from behind the curtain stopped her from wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him enthusiastically on the mouth.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr at [naryrising](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/naryrising) if you want to ask questions, make requests, or chat!


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